A Goddess Candidate and an Underling
by Sekai -The World
Summary: Linda was no one special, an orphan who was born in the slums, grew up to be a thug. Linda was an underling, she would do anything so long as it paid well. If saving a Goddess Candidate would get her rich for life, why not?
1. Chapter 1

A Goddess Candidate and an Underling

Summary: Linda was no one special, an orphan who was born in the slums, grew up to be a thug. Linda was an underling, she would do anything so long as it paid well. If saving a Goddess Candidate would get her rich for life, why not?

* * *

" _You were an accident. That's all you need to know."_

-Old thug.

* * *

Linda was a thug, there wasn't anything else she could become. She was a bastard, her own mother abandoned her in the ghetto when she was ten. Begging for food, searching through the bags of trash for leftovers, she had been there. But there was no way she was going to do that for life.

In the ghetto, you were either a beggar or a thug.

Her pride doesn't give her any other choice.

She had been a frail girl, her malnourished legs don't give her the speed to escape and her weak arms couldn't possibly protect herself. Four out of five times she would get beaten black and blue for failing a theft. Every beating reminded her of her weakness, it made her hated herself.

It made her wished she could become someone else.

That wish took form of an individual-innate skill, it became the gamebreaker that changed her life.

With her innate disguise skill, she could steal and get away by slipping into the crowd, wearing another person's dress and face. With food, she could eat and become physically stronger. With money, she could pay other older thugs to teach her skills to climb the power ladder in the Underworld. With power, she could finally _win_.

Someone who leached onto the powerful to steal their skills, gradually the slums got to know her as 'Linda Underling'.

And with that fame, she would get a mission from a brunette girl that would make her rich and get her out of the slums for good.

"An S rank quest with no question asked. I need you to infiltrate a place, save and return with the people that have been trapped there. We will pay you a million credits if you succeed."

Without knowing the danger involved, Linda accepted the quest. There has always been the possibility of death in the slums. But she was the top of the slums and master of disguise. If one S rank quest was all it took for her to earn the money to get out of the slums, she would do it.

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 **A/N: A surprise LindaGear (or UnderGear?) short story series. Will try to update often. Is anyone even interested in this pairing?**


	2. Chapter 2

A Goddess Candidate and an Underling

Summary: Linda was no one special, an orphan who was born in the slums, grew up to be a thug. Linda was an underling, she would do anything so long as it paid well. If saving a Goddess Candidate would get her rich for life, why not?

* * *

" _We will be teleporting you to a fortified place close to your target now. I will you best of luck."_

-Brunette girl

* * *

Linda was no stranger to scams. In fact, thanks to her shapeshifting skill she was quite an accomplished scammer (if she would say so herself). She just had to take the face of a credible (and short) brunette merchant with giant white bunny cap and sell ASIC products in her name. That merchant's fame (notoriety) went up, the buyers were happy (until their consoles got infected) and Linda earned herself 'honest' money.

Even as a scammer, Linda has standards. She wouldn't stoop so low as to trick someone into physical danger.

That meant she has the moral high ground here. So it should be perfectly okay for her to swear bloody vengeance on that brunette girl called IF for sending her to this goddess forsaken place!

One moment she had been inside Planeptune's basilicom, the next the floor under her lit up and she found herself in a scrap yard. Mountains of obsolete pieces of broken technologies surrounded her and the sky was dark _red_ (as if that wasn't enough to tell how her how screwed up she was). The scenery combined with the oppressive thunderstorms looming over her, she had seen enough pictures from the internet to know where this place was.

Oh she was pretty sure she would end up here one day, definitely not while she was _alive._

That's right, she was now in the last place any sane person would want to be on Gamindustri, the Gamindustri Graveyard.

Or in simpler terms: _Hell_.

"A fortified place my ass! What in the hell am I supposed to do here!?"

The graveyard responded with her own echo. Linda was not amused.

 _Fine then, it's too lame to turn back now anyway! I will save those stupid targets and get rich! Just you wait IF, when I am done with this you're next!_

The Underling pulled her hood over herself and trenched forward with her trusty iron pipe in her grip. By her name Linda she would accomplish this one last mission and get out of this dangerous life. With a million credits she would buy a nice comfortable apartment far away from the slums and look up on getting a safer job. Maybe she could be a guild agent. She was pretty confident in her shapeshifting and espionage skills.

That's right, her set of stealth skills. Whatever her enemies in hell maybe, she just has to sneak in, save the people and get out. No one would ever know she has been here at all.

A loud stomp trembled the ground and killed her plan. Someone(?) had landed right before her (so much for sneaking in). Trying to see who stopped her, Linda looked up.

And up.

"Look what have I found, a rat who screamed out her position. I must be in luck! Prepare to be destroyed!"

Wild seven meter tall giant robot with a nasty looking axe appeared!

Go! Linda!

[FIGHT] [SHAPESHIFT]

[ITEM] [RUN]

"Fuck! I didn't sign up for this!"

 **[Run]**

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 **A/N: Two reviews? I love you guys. Will be trying to keep up the daily update pace so keep them coming!**


	3. Chapter 3

A Goddess Candidate and an Underling

Summary: Linda was no one special, an orphan who was born in the slums, grew up to be a thug. Linda was an underling, she would do anything so long as it paid well. If saving a Goddess Candidate would get her rich for life, why not?

* * *

" _Filthy rat! This will teach you to not steal again!"_

-Fat otaku

* * *

Linda's very first theft has been towards a bag of convenient store snacks from an oversized brute. That guy was so large that his shirt couldn't even cover his belly button. His arms and legs were chummy with fat, jiggling with every slow step he took. No matter how you looked at him, he must be one of those useless _otaku_ , the kind of people who were so obsessed with fantasy that they refused to work.

She had thought they would be easy targets, that she would be able to outrun him and that would be it.

She was proven horribly wrong. She had been even weaker than an otaku. A hand had shoved Linda on to the ground. She had tried to get up, but her focus blurred when a strong force impacted her face.

She cried. She said sorry.

The kicking didn't stop. He kicked her in the stomach, stomped on her fingers and spit on her face.

Perhaps it had been mercy on her to pass out at some point. When she did open her eyes again, she couldn't move. Her mind registered new parts of pain that wasn't there before she passed out. Her body ached from her first set of bruises. It hurt too much to think properly.

 _Why must everything be painful? I don't hate pain._

Why must she suffer just to eat dinner?

These slackers actually leeched off their parents' money while she had to gamble her life just to get the bare necessity of food to fill her stomach. _How is this fair?_

The answer was simple to her, the world was simply not fair. There were people who were born rich and loved, and there's Linda, an accident.

The old thug who knew her parents told her she wasn't welcomed into this world.

 _Screw the world. Screw the Goddesses who were supposed to protect her. Screw men who beat her up. Screw the parents who didn't want her. Screw them all!_

On that day, Linda knew to hate and who to hate. Hate drove her past pain, past humiliation. It gave her the resilience to handle pain and bring her back to the slums. If she had stayed on the ground, she would have eventually starved to death and died.

But she returned back to the trash and found a half full bottle of potion. It saved her, gave her enough energy to search for more food and attempt another steal. Chivalry wouldn't bring her food, hate and humiliating methods did.

It was because of those two thoughts that she survived until today.

Nothing was too low for her. If the situation called...

"WHERE IS THAT RAT! I KNOW YOU ARE HERE!"

She would even play the dead.

* * *

With a frustrated roar, the giant robot that had been pursuing Linda swung his axe and smashed into a mountain of trash. The mountain of remnants of old technology toppled over, burying the corpses that laid under it as a makeshift grave. Seeing no response, the robot punched another pile of junk again, wreaking chaos over the place.

As the robot continued his tantrum, Linda watched motionlessly. Her breath barely audio for she was under a pile of the dead.

Even though she could claim to be the fastest of the slums, it had been quickly apparent that was her AGI stats were for naught here. While she had to jump over many foot-tripping obstacles with precision, the giant had just bulldozed through them with brute force. All that needed to happen was a single trip and she would undoubtedly be cleaved in two.

If that giant wanted to play dirty, Linda would do the same too.

Using one of her precious smuggled smoke grenades (that she would charge Planeptune's basilicom for), she managed to blind the giant for a few seconds. It was just enough time for her to dive into the pile of corpses and shapeshift into one of them. Now that the giant was preoccupied with his own tantrum, she finally has time to think about the shit she has gotten herself into.

Linda had been condemned straight to hell without even a solid explanation and was tasked to save some VIPs. As if the location wasn't obnoxious enough, she was now hiding from a rampaging giant in a pile of corpses that not-so-proudly represented the soldiers of Planeptune. This was no mere errand she thought she was running for Planeptune's basilicom.

She may be a thug, but she wasn't stupid. You would have to actually use that muscle in your head to survive through the conspiracies of the underworld.

A bunch of people who were significant enough to be locked up in _hell_. Valuable enough that the basilicom would actually track down Linda and offer a reward of a million credits to save them.

Who was she kidding? She was living in a world ran by tyrants. Compare to _them_ , these soldiers were expendable, one million credits were expendable.

That's why the basilicom hired her, wasn't it? If she succeeded in bring _them_ back then a million credits was a cheap price to pay. If she doesn't, no one would bat an eye and Planeptune would be better off without her.

She, a thug was now on a suicide mission to save the Goddesses who have been missing for the past two years.

The same Goddesses she had once worshipped, the same Goddesses who never once extended their protection to her. The ones indirectly responsible for her dirty way of life.

All because they couldn't govern their countries right, Linda suffered. And now she was on her way to save them.

The stench of corpses didn't affect her, but the thought of her mission almost made her puke.

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 **A/N: Thanks for the reviews again. This came out a bit late but longer than usual. I might have to pause this because of finals but I really want to get to saving Nepgear...we will see.**


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